


The Wild Hunt

by qodarkness



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grown up folklore levels of violence and grim, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Very AU, celtic folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 17:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20878202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness
Summary: This was no childhood tale.It was Samhain night and the Wild Hunt was riding.Then the Huntsman looked down and saw him, and the horn sounded and the hounds turned and Theon turned back into the forest and ran.





	The Wild Hunt

The hunt had taken him far from the sea. 

But his sister had sent him from the Islands to hunt for the keep, to bring back enough salted meat to get them through the winter, and the stag that flitted before him in the forest was big enough to make tracking him worth it. 

Some would have said bringing down such a stag would need horses and hounds and a chase through the countryside. Theon had his bow; he needed nothing else. Carefully he slipped through the trees, knowing that tracking the stag would become impossible soon, when the last light of the sun slipped away, but he was close enough to see the tips of its antlers through the trees and he would not stop.

Then a step, a turn and he stood on the edge of a clearing, the stag silhouetted against the very last drops of the sunlight that flowed low through the trees. In seconds Theon had nocked, drawn and released, and the arrow’s fletchings quivered as it sprouted suddenly from the stag’s eye socket, the heavy hunting arrow dropping it immediately in death. 

Then the last light of the sun failed, the first sliver of the moon appearing above the horizon, and the sky _ boiled _ and Theon stared in amazement as it filled with horses rising from the earth and into the sky, hounds streaming before them, riders shouting and screaming in glee as they flew, following the sounds of their leader’s hunting horn.

He had forgotten the ways of the mainland, forgotten the times of the mainland, for they were not his ways and he had only heard them in childhood tales. 

This was no childhood tale. 

It was Samhain night and the Wild Hunt was riding.

Then the Huntsman looked down and saw him, and the horn sounded and the hounds turned and Theon turned back into the forest and _ ran. _

He had hunted wide and far in his life, hunted large game and small and he used everything he had learned from prey in that wild flight. He used thickets and coverts, changed direction often, went to earth until they thundered through the sky over him and then fled in the other direction, crossed streams and waded up them to wash away his scent, thanking his Drowned God that his night vision was good and the moon was full, the land brightening as it rose.

But the hounds were unearthly and had hunted men and game for hundreds of years and Theon could not escape them. 

They cornered him in the end, against a steep outcrop of rock he could not get around or climb over fast enough to escape them, bailed him up against them, his back to the rocks. He watched the Hunt come closer, leisurely now, enjoying the slow stalk of the long-legged hounds as Theon stared at their jaws, slaver dripping from over-long teeth.

He would die, he knew he would die and the slow smile on the face of the Huntsman made it clear that his death would be enjoyed. 

He refused to die easy.

He had only his short dagger at his hip to fight the hounds, but he had his bow. No point going for a hound, too close, and the Huntsman. Not the Huntsman. Something told Theon that his arrow would never touch the Huntsman. 

So as the hounds stalked closer, he unslung his bow from his shoulder, drew an arrow, nocked, held and… That one. In the middle of the Hunt, a smile too wide to be human, bright eyes, white hair.

Theon loosed.

He never missed. 

The horse reared up as its saddle was suddenly empty and then the Hunt was still. Utterly still, utterly silent, as if it was suddenly a picture from a book etched against a moonlight sky, the hounds waiting, mouths open, mere steps from Theon, held at bay against the rocks.

Then the Huntsman smiled. “We cannot have an empty saddle,” he said and the Hunt moved again, folded and swirled and Theon was lifted, the strong arms of the Huntsman (he hadn’t even seen him _ move_) taking him off his feet and onto the riderless horse.

And then the Hunt rode, Theon trapped in the middle of them, unable to stop, unable to dismount, unable even to fall as they screamed across the sky, hunting (he didn’t even see their prey, just the swirl of hounds and people as the Hunt fell upon whatever was foolish enough to be out in the open on Samhain night) until the moon touched the horizon and then they fell from the sky into the earth, and Theon screamed as they went into the caves that closed behind them, swallowed the howls of the Hunt until they went still.

Theon’s last thought was, “Yara!” and then everything went black and the Wild Hunt slept.

*****

Four times a year, Beltane and Samhain, Spring and Harvest, they Hunted. 

The Huntsman drove them, his hounds utterly loyal to him, the horses streaming behind him. His helm was a Ram’s head, the furs around his neck as white as snow, a great snarling hound’s head on his breastplate and the cloak that streamed behind him was the flayed flesh of a man. 

And when he turned his blue eyes on you, his smile, you could not say no to whatever he asked. Theon learned that, learned that the first time the Ram had called him up during a hunt, a man zig-zagging desperately across the fields before them, and he had told Theon to shoot the man. 

“No,” screamed Theon inside his head. “No.” 

If he could have jumped from his horse, he would. He would have fallen screaming beneath the hooves of the Hunt if he could have said no. 

But the Ram smiled at him, blue eyes on him, and Theon was part of the Hunt now, and his unslung his bow, nocked and drew, loosed. 

He did not even look at the man as he fled, kept his eyes on the Ram, who looked ahead and let his smile curl wider as Theon heard the sound of an arrow striking flesh.

He never missed. 

And the Hunt rolled forward and fell upon its prey and tore it into pieces, Hunters and hounds both, a roiling mass of bloodlust, as the Ram smiled at Theon.

From that day onwards he was The Archer and when the Ram told him to loose, he never missed.

And when the Hunt slept, The Archer dreamed of the sea and that it rose up slowly and gently drowned him.

*****

It was a wolf’s pelt, a flash of red beneath them, racing across the empty field that stretched, far too vast in front of the keep.

It was a woman, red hair streaming behind her, running across the field towards the keep, out too late, trapped under the moon on Beltane and the Hunt streamed after her.

She ran faster, then jinked, across to the side, away from the hounds, sprinting desperately to a large rock that leaned drunkenly out of the ground, the only cover in all of the field, and when she turned to face them, her back against it, her face was a wolf’s snarl. 

“Archer,” called the Ram, as the Hunt came to a stop, facing the woman, and The Archer screamed no, and no, and no, and obediently nodded. 

“Shoot her,” said the Ram. “Shoot the Red Wolf.”

Shoot the Red Wolf. Shoot the Red Wolf.

The Archer nocked and drew and the woman’s snarl grew deeper, unafraid and hating as she stared at The Archer.

He never missed.

Shoot the Red Wolf. Shoot the Red Wolf.

His fingers flexed on the string, blue eyes on him, hers and the Ram’s and The Archer never missed.

Shoot the Red Wolf.

The Archer released and the arrow went through the throat of the man at the front edge of the Hunt, his eyes fixing in death even as his hand rose up to clutch at his throat, the red wolf’s pelt he wore shining in the moonlight as he fell.

The Ram laughed then. 

“No empty saddles,” he said and the woman was there then, gathered up in the Hunt, as they streamed onwards into the night, and she turned to look at The Archer and her eyes were full of hate. 

*****

He could feel her hate always, each Hunt, her eyes burning into him as they rode, but he stayed as near to her as she could stand. 

And when the Ram told him to shoot a stag or a man or a farm boy, he heard her hiss, “Say no! No!” and he could not say no and still he never missed and he would feel her hate burn brighter. 

When they fell into the earth and it closed over them and they slept, the last thing he would feel was her hate and the sea was no longer gentle but boiled as the arms of the kraken rose and tore him asunder.

Then the Ram laughed about his Red Wolf that The Archer had brought to the Hunt and taught her the words to control the hounds, because it amused him to have a Wolf run his dogs, and The Archer silently screamed, “No! No! Do not trust him! Do not do what he asks!”. But the words would not come out. 

She learned. 

The Ram taught her. He taught her the next time when the girl ran across the field, desperately trying to get home to her steading ahead of the Hunt, and the Ram told the Red Wolf to set the dogs on her and The Archer watched her as she tried to say no but the words that came out were those that the Ram taught her and the dogs fell upon the girl and then the Hunt fell upon the girl and ended her. 

And the Ram taught her other things then, his hand fisted in her red hair as he lifted her skirts and fucked her from behind as the Hunt howled and tore the girl’s body to pieces behind them. The Archer looked on, hate and anger written on his face and the Red Wolf looked back at him, her expression matching his and even as the Ram’s hands tore at her back, she nodded at The Archer. 

*****

When the Hunt rose again, she rode beside The Archer, seeking him out until her horse settled beside his. 

“Who are you?” she asked. 

“The Archer,” he replied.

“No,” she said implacably. “What is your name?”

And he turned to look at her, even as the Hunt boiled across the sky and her eyes were on him, unforgiving. 

He could not remember, could not remember anything but The Archer and The Ram and the Wild Hunt and the sea, the sea that rose to drown him and the kraken that came to destroy him and he remembered, floating from the depths of what had been, he remembered Yara and then he remembered. 

“Theon,” he said, his name tasting rusty with disuse on his tongue. 

“You have to remember your name,” she said, and her voice was steel and he knew she would not let him yield his name back to the dark again.

“And yours, Red Wolf?” Theon asked. 

“Sansa. My name is Sansa.”

When they fell into the earth, he dreamed he walked upon a barren shore and the small waves that fell upon the sand whispered, “Sansa.”

*****

They Hunted. They killed. The Archer never missed. The Red Wolf loosed the hounds. The Ram fucked her and when he did, she would stare at The Archer and he would watch her lips form the words over and over again. 

“Theon. Sansa.”

She took him back from the Hunt inch by inch, Hunt by Hunt, his name and hers a mantra that she kept from the Ram.

They rode next to each other and when they fell into the earth this time, she was close enough that her red hair spread over him, and he caught it in his hands, wrapped around his fingers, and he dreamed that she rose from the sea and said, over and over, “Theon. Your name is Theon.”

*****

They Hunted. They killed. She would not leave his side, even when the Hunt fell upon its prey, and she whispered his name and he replied, “Sansa. Sansa,” when he was sure the Ram could not hear him. 

And the moon fell towards the horizon and the Hunt turned towards home and screamed through the sky, Sansa beside him and as the horses fell downwards to the earth, he reached out and grasped her hand. And the moon dipped below the horizon and he felt the Ram’s hold on them, on the Hunt, lessen, and he gripped tightly and he fell, fell from his mount, holding her hand tightly enough that he dragged her from her horse and then they were falling, and flying, falling to the earth, into the deep snow as he heard the Ram’s howl and the earth closed behind the Hunt. 

They were free. 

He was Theon. She was Sansa. And they were free. 

“Come with me to the sea,” he said, but she would not agree. 

“I have to go home to my keep,” she said. “To Winterfell. My family. I miss them so much.”

He did not want to go back to Yara. She had died years ago, he knew, lost to him in the time he had spent sleeping beneath the earth, Hunting across the sky. Without Yara, there was nothing on the Islands for him. All he had was the sea. And Sansa. 

So he followed her to Winterfell, keeping them alive with the game he hunted for them, for still he never missed.

She recognised no-one on the gates of Winterfell, and when she asked to see the Lord of Winterfell, they took her to an old man who stared at her from the audience chair. “I had a sister called Sansa,” he said to her, his voice mildly fond. “She disappeared, oh so many years ago now. She had red hair like yours.”

She smiled and made up some reason for seeing him and when they were out of the audience chamber, she said to Theon, “That was my little brother, Bran. He would have been ten when I… when the Hunt…” She did not need to finish the sentence. 

When the castle was dark and quiet for the night, they went to the crypts (for, other than four nights a year, the dark held no terrors for them now) and Sansa sighed as she saw her own statue there, long given up for dead.

She went with Theon to the sea. They found a cottage between the forest and the shore, long since abandoned, and he quickly made it sturdy and windproof and they lived there within hearing distance of the sea. In the night they would sleep in their own rooms, but when he dreamed of the Ram he could go to her room in the night and say, “Sansa,” from the doorway and she would reply, “Your name is Theon,” and the Ram would leave him be. And some nights she would come to his doorway and he would tell her she was Sansa, and the Ram would leave her be. 

On the longest night of the year, she took him into her bed.

On the shortest night of the year, she took him as her husband.

Their children were beautiful, a boy first then a girl, each with her red hair but his ocean blue eyes, both sturdy and unafraid of the sea and the forest and the dark. Except for Samhain and Beltane, Spring and Harvest nights, when Theon would bar the doors to the cottage and let no-one set foot outside between sundown and sunrise. 

When Robb was ten years old, the Ram found them. 

They had hoped that the first night was just unlucky, the Wild Hunt simply tormenting a random cottage they passed by. But the second night, four months later, proved that a lie, and the fourth and the fifth showed that he was not going to stop. The Ram wanted them back, and both Theon and Sansa knew that, if he could not have them, he would take the children. 

So on the sixth night, they barred the doors to the cottage from the outside, locking the children in. A friend would come in the morning to check and let the children out if they did not survive the Ram. 

Then they waited on the long stretch of the shore, not far from their home, but where the Hunt would see them easily. Their hands met between them, intertwined. 

The moon rose and the sky _ boiled _and the Wild Hunt erupted above them.

They saw the Ram looking down at them, and then he smiled and began to say something. 

The Red Wolf was faster. She knew the hounds were hungry and wild at moonrise, more inclined to savagery until they were sated. She said the words he had taught her so long ago, commanded the hounds to turn and kill the Ram and because they were hungry, they turned.

The Ram screamed at the hounds as they tore at him, but they had not fed for months and they didn’t listen to him, only to their hunger and they tore him from his mount and he fell and fell and fell to the earth, landing not far from The Archer and The Red Wolf. 

The Archer nocked, drew and loosed. 

He never missed. 

The arrow took the Ram through the heart. 

Then the Hunt was spiralling down through the sky, down to the kill, where the hounds savaged the Ram’s body and Theon and Sansa ran back to the cottage, got in and then barred the doors again from the inside. When that was done, they gathered Robb and Arya into their arms and held them as the Hunt howled outside, until the last pieces of the Ram’s flesh were torn from his bones and the Hunt fled into the sky.

When the morning came, the Wild Hunt was gone, leaving only a few pieces of bloody flesh behind. Theon threw them into the forest for the birds to eat before the children were allowed out of the cottage again.

“He’s gone,” he told Sansa, as she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. “The Ram is dead.”

“And the Archer?” she asked. 

“Is no more,” he said. “Only Theon.”

“Only Sansa,” she confirmed and taking his hand, led him home to the children. 

That night, sleeping in her arms, he dreamed that they lay together on the breast of the sea and it cradled them softly and sang them quiet songs of the deep, and the only words he understood were, “Theon. Sansa,” but they were the only words he needed to hear to know that he was home. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I have no real idea where this one came from. I’m about to re-read the Moon of Gomrath and everyone American on my timeline is suddenly talking about Halloween and apparently all of that tied together and I decided to write a Wild Hunt/Game of Thrones crossover AU.
> 
> I think we will just go with the fact that I think I’m determined to write Theon and Sansa in all possible universes and ways. Though this is my first AU that isn’t set within the actual Game of Thrones mythos/timelines. 
> 
> I just love to write really. I like to explore different ways of writing and Theon and Sansa just give me such a fantastic character base to suddenly decide I want to write, say, grim Celtic mythos tale in a somewhat saga-ish style.


End file.
